Mirella Gonzales Carrillo joined the Davis High volleyball team three years ago from Peru and, while her language skills are still improving, she brought a well-defined game to the court.

“Sorry my English is a little weird; I speak Spanish, you can tell a little bit,” Carrillo said. “In Peru we always practiced passing. … We do always read the ball to get a good pass and play good defense.”

Carillo had 12 digs on Thursday night in a match against neighboring rival Farmington, and the Darts rallied to sweep three straight sets,  after dropping the first, capturing a 3-1 (18-25, 25-19, 25-12, 25-21) match for their first Region 1 victory.

“Passing is my favorite thing; I always love doing that,” Carrillo said. “I’m an outside, so I think what I bring to my team are my assists … also my defense on the back row, more than I do on the front row.

“I think that helps the team because we need good passes to be able to hit and make points,” Carrillo said.

Davis (6-11, 1-2 Region 1) dropped the first set, trailing early 8-1, and never recovered from that deficit.

“We were probably not focused at all, then we put more effort, talked as a team and made a change,” Carrillo said.

Senior middle Alex Harris further expanded how the Darts turned things around after the first set loss.

“We really struggled passing, and passing on the net to get it to our hitters. Our blocking was off as well,” Harris said. “The rest of the sets, we regrouped and started to play volleyball. We got better passes and were able to block better; we gained confidence in ourselves and kept the points on our side.”

Zaylee Mabey had a kill to tie the match for the Darts in set two, then they raced to a 10-1 lead in the third set before coasting comfortably.

Carrillo placed five consecutive service points to wrap up that third set.

“I think that was also getting focused. I wasn’t trying to make really hard serves … I just didn’t want to get it on the net,” Carrillo said. “Get it over the net, but also hit it hard. If I get it over the net, we don’t lose points.”

Harris, at 6-foot 4, had two blocks and a kill, for a trio of the final five Davis points of the set. She hit .500 for the match and notched seven blocks overall.

“I’ve been working a lot with our setters, especially; we used to struggle with our middle connection and putting the ball down,” Harris said. “I figured out where they were hitting and learned to read it better.”

The Darts led 2-1 opening the fourth set and the advantage grew to 22-14 before Farmington (5-12, 0-2) made a game of it and caused a little angst among the raucous home crowd.

“Sometimes, we can’t get a good pass. I don’t know if we get nervous when it gets close and want to close it out,” Carrillo said. “But, when we make points … the cheering people in the bleachers makes us have more fun and more joy and energy.”

Mabey recorded seven kills and 12 digs, and Carrillo added eight kills for the Darts.

“I try to jump as high as I can and hit really hard at an angle so I don’t get blocked,” Carrillo said.

Davis snapped a four-game losing streak and, in the process, garnered that initial Region 1 win.

“I feel like we’ve definitely improved; the beginning of the season was patchy, but we’ve gotten a lot better as a team and individual players,” Harris said. “I think it’s going to be a good season going forward.”

Carrillo agreed, happy with Davis’ rivalry rebound.

“They were so good. … I think our hard work was the thing that made us win,” Carrillo said. “They also worked really hard but … we never gave up.”